Watching “The Royal Tenenbaums” again with Jesse yesterday, two things occurred to me.
1. I have an intense love for this movie.
2. Gene Hackman’s performance as Royal Tenenbaum is one of my favorite performances in movies, ever.
Category: words mean things (Page 49 of 223)
Is it wishful thinking for me to wonder if the Bush administration is slowly crumbling? The latest to go is Retired Adm. John Poindexter, one of the key figures in Iran-Contra in the 80s, over the almost unbelievable Pentagon plan to allow traders to bet on future assassinations and terrorist acts.
Onion, meet reality. Reality, Onion. (Actually, I think you two already met a while ago.)
If Bush and Co. keeps shedding its skin at this rate, there’ll be nothing left by November 2004. One can hope.
Synonyms of the Day
Truculent and pugnacious.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Adam’s Five-Word Review: get this woman an editor.
There’s definitely some entertainment to be had here in the fifth installment of J.K. Rowling’s wizard saga. But Rowling is definitely coasting, and the book’s 870-page length is a good example. The book is filled with subplots whose only function is to pop back in at the end to wrap up some other plot point. The characterizations are flat, other than the deliciously banal evil of new Defense of the Dark Arts teacher Dolores Umbridge. And while the books are always plot-driven, that reaches epic proportions this time, where the real emotion that could have made the story more engaging is brushed aside to make room for more goings-on.
Other than Umbridge, I also enjoyed Harry’s adolescent anger, partly because I seem to be going through a second adolescence myself. I can identify with how other people, especially hypocritical and stupid adults, piss him off royally.
Mainly, I think the problem here is that Rowling has become so popular and successful, her editors have become unwilling to rein in her “throw in everything and the kitchen sink” approach to getting a story down on paper. If she keeps going like this, you’ll have to buy a wheelbarrow to drag the seventh book home.
Funny yet sad headline/subhead combo of the day
Bush wants marriage reserved for heterosexuals
Urges America to remain a “welcoming country”
Canada is looking better and better every day. The insanity around here is wearing me down.
“Gigli,” Ben and J.Lo’s “how we met” movie, opening this week, appears to be so brain-liquefyingly bad that I can’t wait to see it. I mean, who could resist ‘Jenny from the Block’ as a foul-mouthed lesbian hitwoman, paired with Ben Affleck doing a poor imitation of Tony Soprano? What’s not to love?
UPDATE: Even the Onion is jumping on the bandwagon.
Memo to self: There’s such a thing as too much posting in one day.
A profoundly disturbing account of how Iraq and 9/11 have become inextricably linked in the minds of many Americans:
A note of thanks to those who serve (courtesy of lies.com)
“To me, those troops were there to avenge the murder of my husband and 3,000 others.”
This woman’s grief at the loss of her husband is only natural. But how our national grief and anger over 9/11 has mutated into national insanity is the real tragedy of that day.
Quote of the day
“The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we *can* suppose.”
-John Haldane
On Monday at noon, Vice President Dick Cheney hosted a $2,000/plate fundraising lunch, getting supporters to pony up a total of $300,000.
Beginning late last Thursday, Howard Dean’s campaign launched a drive to outpace Cheney, mainly through contributions over the Internet. By the time Cheney’s lunch started, they had raised $344,000 from 6,558 donors. As of 1:30 a.m. today, the total brought in for Dean from this drive was $508,000.
How cool is that?